Question: The manager at Michael's Furniture Store is trying to figure out how much to charge for a book shelf that just arrived. If the book shelf was bought at a wholesale price of $144.00 and Michael's Furniture Store marks up all furniture by 70%, at what price should the manager sell the book shelf?
Solution: In order to find the retail price, we must first find the amount of markup. Remember that a markup rate is a percentage of the wholesale price that a store adds to get a selling or retail price. With this knowledge, we can figure out the following equation: markup rate $\times$ wholesale price $=$ amount of markup Since the markup rate is a percentage, we have to convert it into a decimal first. Percent means "out of one hundred," so $70\%$ is equivalent to $\frac{70}{100}$ which is also equal to $70 \div 100$ $70 \div 100 = 0.70$ Now you have all the information you need to find the amount of markup! $0.70$ $\times$ $$144.00$ $=$ $$100.80$ Since the markup rate is a percentage of the wholesale price that is added to get the retail price, we can find the retail price with the following equation: amount of markup $+$ wholesale price $=$ retail price $$100.80$ $+$ $$144.00$ $=$ $$244.80$ The retail price of the book shelf should be $$244.80$.